Beatrice. He were an excellent man that were made just in the
midway between him and Benedick: the one is too
405like an image and says nothing, and the other too
like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

Beatrice. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which
blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and
evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a
beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen.

Beatrice. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel
and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a
beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no
beard is less than a man: and he that is more than
a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a
430man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take
sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his
apes into hell.

Beatrice. No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet
435me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and
say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to
heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver
I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the
heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and
440there live we as merry as the day is long.

Antonio. [To HERO] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled
by your father.

Beatrice. Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy
and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all
445that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else
make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please
me.'

Leonato. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.

Beatrice. Not till God make men of some other metal than
450earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be
overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make
an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren;
and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
455

Leonato. Daughter, remember what I told you: if the prince
do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer.

Beatrice. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be
not wooed in good time: if the prince be too
important, tell him there is measure in every thing
460and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero:
wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,
a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot
and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as
fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a
465measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the
cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.

Beatrice. Why, he is the prince's jester: a very dull fool;
only his gift is in devising impossible slanders:
none but libertines delight in him; and the
commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany;
525for he both pleases men and angers them, and then
they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in
the fleet: I would he had boarded me.

Beatrice. Do, do: he'll but break a comparison or two on me;
530which, peradventure not marked or not laughed at,
strikes him into melancholy; and then there's a
partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no
supper that night.
[Music]535We must follow the leaders.

Claudio. Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
'Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
560Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,
565Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

Benedick. Even to the next willow, about your own business,
county. What fashion will you wear the garland of?
about your neck, like an usurer's chain? or under
your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You must wear
575it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

Benedick. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges.
But that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not
know me! The prince's fool! Ha? It may be I go
under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I
am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it
590is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice
that puts the world into her person and so gives me
out. Well, I'll be revenged as I may.

Benedick. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame.
I found him here as melancholy as a lodge in a
warren: I told him, and I think I told him true,
that your grace had got the good will of this young
lady; and I offered him my company to a willow-tree,
600either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or
to bind him up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

Benedick. The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who, being
overjoyed with finding a birds' nest, shows it his
605companion, and he steals it.

Don Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The
transgression is in the stealer.

Benedick. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made,
and the garland too; for the garland he might have
610worn himself, and the rod he might have bestowed on
you, who, as I take it, have stolen his birds' nest.

Don Pedro. I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to
the owner.

Don Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the
gentleman that danced with her told her she is much
wronged by you.

Benedick. O, she misused me past the endurance of a block!
620an oak but with one green leaf on it would have
answered her; my very visor began to assume life and
scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been
myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was
duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest
625with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood
like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at
me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs:
if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
there were no living near her; she would infect to
630the north star. I would not marry her, though she
were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before
he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have
turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make
the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find
635her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God
some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while
she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a
sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they
would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror
640and perturbation follows her.

Benedick. Will your grace command me any service to the
world's end? I will go on the slightest errand now
645to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on;
I will fetch you a tooth-picker now from the
furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of
Prester John's foot, fetch you a hair off the great
Cham's beard, do you any embassage to the Pigmies,
650rather than hold three words' conference with this
harpy. You have no employment for me?

Don Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of
Signior Benedick.

Beatrice. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave
him use for it, a double heart for his single one:
660marry, once before he won it of me with false dice,
therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.

Beatrice. The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor
well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and
something of that jealous complexion.

Don Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true;
though, I'll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is
675false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and
fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father,
and his good will obtained: name the day of
marriage, and God give thee joy!

Leonato. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my
680fortunes: his grace hath made the match, and an
grace say Amen to it.

Leonato. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my
lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and
not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,
she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
720herself with laughing.

Claudio. To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love
have all his rites.

Leonato. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just
730seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all
things answer my mind.

Don Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing:
but, I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go
dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of
735Hercules' labours; which is, to bring Signior
Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of
affection the one with the other. I would fain have
it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if
you three will but minister such assistance as I
740shall give you direction.

Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my
cousin to a good husband.

Don Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that
I know. Thus far can I praise him; he is of a noble
strain, of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I
750will teach you how to humour your cousin, that she
shall fall in love with Benedick; and I, with your
two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in
despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he
shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this,
755Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall be
ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me,
and I will tell you my drift.